“He is always asking me if I am pleased with my furniture, my clothes, my servants, and my garden, and if I desire anything altered.  I thank him with a kiss, and tell him that I am pleased with everything.”

“Does he ever speak of the scion you are going to present to him?”

“He often says that I ought to be careful of myself in my situation.  I am hoping that he will recognize my son as a prince of the blood; he ought in justice to do so, as the queen is dead.”

“To be sure he will.”

“I should be very happy if I had a son.  I wish I felt sure that I would have one.  But I say nothing about this to anyone.  If I dared speak to the king about the horoscope, I am certain he would want to know you; but I am afraid of evil tongues.”

“So am I. Continue in your discreet course and nothing will come to disturb your happiness, which may become greater, and which I am pleased to have procured for you.”

We did not part without tears.  She was the first to go, after kissing me and calling me her best friend.  I stayed a short time with Madame Varnier to compose my feelings, and I told her that I should have married her instead of drawing her horoscope.

“She would no doubt have been happier.  You did not foresee, perhaps, her timidity and her lack of ambition.”

“I can assure you that I did not reckon upon her courage or ambition.  I laid aside my own happiness to think only of hers.  But what is done cannot be recalled, and I shall be consoled if I see her perfectly happy at last.  I hope, indeed, she will be so, above all if she is delivered of a son.”

I dined with Madame d’Urfe, and we decided to send back Aranda to his boarding-school that we might be more free to pursue our cabalistic operations; and afterwards I went to the opera, where my brother had made an appointment with me.  He took me to sup at Madame Vanloo’s, and she received me in the friendliest manner possible.

“You will have the pleasure of meeting Madame Blondel and her husband,” said she.

The reader will recollect that Madame Blondel was Manon Baletti, whom I was to have married.

“Does she know I am coming?” I enquired.

“No, I promise myself the pleasure of seeing her surprise.”

“I am much obliged to you for not wishing to enjoy my surprise as well.  We shall see each other again, but not to-day, so I must bid you farewell; for as I am a man of honour I hope never to be under the same roof as Madame Blondel again.”

With this I left the room, leaving everybody in astonishment, and not knowing where to go I took a coach and went to sup with my sister-in-law, who was extremely glad to see me.  But all through supper-time this charming woman did nothing but complain of her husband, saying that he had no business to marry her, knowing that he could not shew himself a man.

“Why did you not make the trial before you married?”